Company Of Spears

The passage of time worked subtle changes, however. These days Hervey was able to acquit his penance speedily. No longer was he troubled for days, and nights. The pangs of guilt, though frequently sharp, were also short. But what had replaced the dull ache of his loss and of his own perceived fault in it was the conviction that he compounded his guilt by neglect of Henrietta’s daughter. That was how he had thought of Georgiana, principally – as a relict of his late wife. Had thought, until quite recently. Since his return from Portugal he had begun to see Georgiana no longer as the mere image of her mother, like some miniature which had caught a good likeness, but as her own being, a child of nine with spirit, a quick mind, and decided opinions about things which he himself had not even thought about. In truth, he was beginning to find her engaging company. He wanted her to ride with him on the plain; he wanted even to hear her play the piano – and not just because he had bought a very fine one for her ninth birthday: he wanted to watch and listen. It was slowly occurring to him that Georgiana was not simply Henrietta’s infant, and therefore his responsibility, but his own daughter – as much his flesh and blood as his late wife’s. And the realization brought him feelings he could not yet fully understand but which he found wholly welcome.

Georgiana’s arms met around his neck and she pressed her cheek firmly to his. ‘I knew you would be come. I put a nightlight in my window for you.’

He had always been uncertain of the true warmth of her greeting, for he had, undeniably, neglected her. There could be no other word for it but ‘neglect’. That he had cause to be absent, always, was without question: all his people knew of the calls of duty. Indeed, his father had forbidden him to send in his papers when he had once perceived it his duty to be at close hand to ageing parents. His sister had positively encouraged him to rejoin the colours when he had resigned in dismay after Henrietta’s death; and even his mother had taken unconcealed pride in the common knowledge of West Wiltshire that her son braved so much in the service of the King. But in his heart he knew that he courted these absences, not for their own sake but for the chance of distinction. And, yes, for the money – prize money – that might accrue, for there could be no realistic prospect of promotion without purchase in these days of official peace.

He would not be apprehensive about his homecoming any longer, however. He had made his decision. Georgiana would have a mother, and he a wife. Then maybe Elizabeth, free at last of duty to all others, might find her own fulfilment (whatever that might be). It was, he confided, a noble course. And, too, it could only bring him tranquillity.

Daniel Coates’s funeral took place two days later. There were no family considerations, he having died without issue, and never speaking of other kin, and early committal suited Lord Bath, who had parliamentary business to attend to in London. Nevertheless, the little church of St Mary the Virgin was full, its pews occupied in the main by the quality, with labourers and others whom ‘the shepherd of Salisbury Plain’ had variously helped standing by the walls inside and out. The three-bell tower had rung a muffled peal for a whole hour before the midday, when the coffin was to be brought from Drove Farm, and a dismounted party of the Wiltshire Yeomanry stood sharp by the lych gate to see in their late benefactor. Lord Bath and sundry JPs occupied the front pews, on the right, and on the Gospel side, in plain coat adorned with the star of the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, sat old General Sir Banastre Tarleton, who had driven from Shropshire overnight on learning of the news of his former trumpeter’s death. Hervey would have recognized him even without the coachman’s prompting, for despite his seventy and five years the general was still the image of his Reynolds portrait, the dashing, con-quering ‘green dragoon’.